Carlos Queiroz said Ghana paid for one critical mistake more than the opponent after a 2-1 loss to Croatia sent the Black Stars to a third-place finish in Group L, admitting that his side conceded two easy goals in the final group game.
The Ghana coach said Croatia played better in the first half and “capitalised on our mistakes, including Petar Sucic’s 40-yard strike that he called “not possible to concede” at this level.
Queiroz praised Ghana’s second-half response — but said failing to capitalise on our opportunities proved costly.
Speaking after the narrow loss, Carlos Queiroz : “Croatia scored two goals. I think two easy goals was too much easy. The way they scored first goal and second goal. But the merit is from Croatia. When you score one more goal than the opponent, that means that you have the merit to win the game.
“Simple like that. It’s meaning that you make at least one more mistake than the opponent. And when we make one more mistake than the opponent, there is nothing that you can do to win the game. The only thing that we can say is, first half I think Croatia played better. They have better control of the game. Second half was only Ghana playing the game. I think what we did in the second half, we should not be punished with the second goal. The draw was the most fair result. But in football there is nothing about fairness. The only thing that exists is you score more goals you win. You score less goals, you lose.”
Commenting on Ghana having only scoring opportunity in the first half, the Portuguese tactician said:
“This is exactly what I said, unless I said something wrong. Croatia played better in the first half, they controlled better the game. And we played much better in the second half. In terms of balance, I think the fair result, the acceptable result was the draw for what we did in the second half. What they did in the first half, they capitalised on our mistakes. A couple of back passes that we lost control of the ball. The goals, too easy goals in this level. There are goals that are not proper from the level of a World Championship,”
He added that: “When we concede one goal from 40 metres, we have to do better. In the second half we had a couple of opportunities, also that we should score. But the story is simple. We played better in the second half; we did not capitalise on our opportunities.
“They played better in the first half; they scored one more goal than us. When that happened, there is nothing to say. The winner deserves the result. We conceded one critical mistake more than Croatia. And when you make a critical mistake more than the opponent, the result is not debatable.
